The sales activities of high-performing sales teams

Sales activities drive sales performance.

In theory, it’s simple. But with sales teams busier than ever, finding the right solutions to scaling high-value sales activities is often easier said than done. Fortunately, there are ways to increase sales activities among sellers without drowning them in work—or putting other tasks on the back burner.

In this guide, we’re diving into the value of sales activities, how to effectively increase them, and how to track them. 

What are sales activities? 

Sales activities are tasks completed by sales reps that help drive deals forward. Put simply, they’re the steps that sellers take along the way in order to reach a closed deal.

When we think about sales-related tasks, we often default to activities directly related to closing deals, such as sending outbound emails or engaging in sales calls. However, anything that supports revenue generation can be considered a sales activity, including tasks such as prepping for meetings, lead qualification, or even CRM maintenance.

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Why are sales activities important for sales reps?

Sellers have one goal: to close deals. 

However, deals don’t generally drive themselves to the finish line. Sellers spend countless hours (or even months) addressing customer concerns, communicating value, and staying on top of their pipelines in order to secure sales. 

It might be a slight oversimplification but as a general rule, the more sales activities, the more closed deals. Of course, this assumes equal sales effectiveness. But in all likelihood, a seller who can conduct 50 outbound calls in a week is much more likely to close a deal than one who only conducts 10. 

So when these tasks ladder up to revenue, strategically increasing the number of sales activities within your team is key to reaching your sales targets. 

When sales-based organizations engage in more high-value selling activities they benefit from:

• Accelerated deal velocity
• More efficient and productive sales processes
• Larger prospect pipelines 
• Reduced customer acquisition costs
• Increased win rates and conversion rates 

But here’s the thing: not all sales activities are equally effective. 

Despite the importance of high-value sales activity, teams are constantly spending far too much time on low-impact, manual tasks. An Affinity survey found that 69% of sales managers say their team spends over 4 hours a week simply updating their CRM—which, while important to the sales process, probably won’t have the same impact on revenue as meeting with a prospect.* Additionally, CRM updates only represent a fraction of the other tedious and low-impact sales activities that sellers are saddled with.

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10 sales activities for your sales team 

With sellers spending as much as two-thirds of their week on non-selling tasks, increasing high-value sales activities is critical to reaching revenue targets. However, it’s not just about increasing the volume of activities; it’s about redirecting resources to the activities that allow sellers to close lucrative deals. 

Here are some sales activities and strategies B2B organizations should employ within the sales process to make the most of their resources. 

1. Centralize your activities within a customer relationship management (CRM) system

Your CRM platform is a valuable tool for data capture. However, your sales pipeline isn’t static, which means your data shouldn’t be either. Customer profiles within your CRM need to go beyond just contact information and deal stage. 

Ideally, your CRM should be able to lift the sales activity out of individual sellers’ inboxes and calendars in real-time, so they are accessible within your CRM. This includes all tasks and outreach that sellers have engaged in as they work to secure the deal. 

As sellers continue to move deals forward, they can easily see where a prospect stands—and any relevant information—at a glance. It also reduces the time sellers spend searching for missing information or context. Otherwise, they can find themselves doing redundant work that leaves a poor impression on the prospect. All of which prevents valuable time from being redirected to revenue-driving sales activity. 

CRM data enriched with sales activity also helps keep deals organized on teams where multiple sellers may be collaborating to move a deal forward. 

2.  Invest in relationship building

The days of transactional sales are long behind us. In the modern B2B sales environment, the foundation of almost every close deal is a strong relationship. This is particularly true in industries with high-touch deal cycles and complex services, where buyers need to establish a strong partnership with sellers. 

When sellers build rapport with prospects, they’re more likely to be perceived as trustworthy. This opens the door to more effective communication between both buyers and sellers. Buyers are more likely to be honest about their needs and challenges and sellers’ recommendations are more likely to be viewed as sincere. 

Relationship intelligence tools, like Affinity for Salesforce, can help keep key relationships top-of-mind by aggregating relationship insights. A complete history of engagement with every contact gives sellers the context they need to build on existing relationships and approach every sales opportunity with confidence. 

3. Schedule follow-up activities

Sales activities rarely happen in a silo. They’re part of a larger sales process that guides the customer closer to a signed deal. But with sales reps busier than ever, it’s easy for follow-up tasks, such as sales calls, meetings, or even emails, to get lost in the mix.
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The solution? Scheduling and automating these follow-up tasks. 

There are several ways sellers can go about this. The first is simply blocking off time in the calendar and making sure that they have dedicated enough time to complete these follow-up tasks. 

The other is taking advantage of automations that either trigger reminders when it’s time to follow up with buyers, or send follow-ups on behalf of sellers using templates and CRM data.  The right automation tools can create personalized communications that keep prospects engaged and your product top of mind. 

Operationalizing these follow-up activities helps sellers stay on top of every opportunity to drive sales forward—without adding more tasks to their work week. 

4. Focus on warm leads in your sales pipeline

Not all leads are equal. According to Affinity data, warm introductions can help close deals as much as 25% faster. So if you’re strapped for resources, focusing your sales activities on warm leads is likely to yield higher returns.

However, warm leads don’t have to come from your immediate network. In all likelihood, there is someone within your network who can make the right introduction.  

Automated networking tools can help sellers identify warm paths of introduction from the entire company’s network. Instead of reaching out blindly, sales teams can view the strength of every relationship to identify and advance the most valuable leads. It makes it easy to see who knows which target contact so you can turn them into a customer, faster.

5. Qualify your inbound leads

Inbound leads can be a great source to fill your deal pipeline, with one caveat: that they’re the right prospects for your product.

Taking the time to qualify inbound leads can help your team save hours of time and resources down the line. There’s nothing worse than getting excited about a potential client, only to find out that their budget and needs aren’t a fit. 
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Your sales team should have a qualification process for both inbound and outbound leads that might include sales qualification call templates, new lead surveys, and of course, plain-old research. The characteristics of a qualified lead can vary dramatically between organizations and industries, but investing in lead qualification is critical to focusing your sales efforts on the right prospects. 

6. Nurture customer relationships

When you have stronger relationships with clients, it enhances the sales experience and makes them more receptive and willing to engage in future selling activities. Once the initial deal is closed, a strong seller-customer relationship also increases the likelihood of being able to upsell the customer in the future. 

The strongest customer relationships go beyond simply discussing your product and constantly sending emails. Treating buyers like potential cash cows is one of the easiest ways to lose a deal. Sellers should take the time to celebrate prospect wins and nurture relationships outside of the direct sales funnel. For example, checking in on a customer’s goals, sharing content your contacts may find valuable, and even simply interacting with their LinkedIn and social media content. 
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These gestures, while they may seem simple, can go a long way in building the trust needed to close bigger and better deals.

While authentic relationships are built by people, they can also be enhanced by data. When sellers have access to historical sales activity and the necessary relationship context, they can continue to build on existing buyer relationships with every interaction. 

Advanced relationship intelligence tools, such as Affinity for Salesforce, score the strength of every relationship and notify you if a relationship score drops, so you never put your relationships at risk. Making sure those all-too-important relationships never fall through the cracks is essential to keeping deals flowing smoothly.

7. Spend time on account planning

Customer needs are constantly changing which means sales organizations need strategies that cater to those evolving needs. Otherwise, retaining existing customers in the long run can be a challenge. And the reality is that it’s often more efficient to invest in maintaining existing key accounts than acquiring new ones. 

Account planning factors in the interests and pain points of your highest-potential accounts when building out your own business pipeline. For example, you may invest in new products, features, or offerings so that you can continue to meet your top customers’ needs. 

Sure, strategic account planning doesn’t secure new customers. However, it powers larger, mutually beneficial relationships that maximize customer lifetime value (LTV) and boost overall long-term revenue.

8. Block off time for cold calling

Relationships might be the key to closing deals. But every relationship has to start somewhere. 

Ideally, sellers should aim to find paths of warm introduction to help deals close faster. However, the reality is that not every closed deal is going to stem from a warm contact. Without dedicating time to strategic cold outreach, you’re likely missing out on potential customers.

And because deals are constantly moving—and sellers are busy—if time isn’t set aside to create this cold outreach, there’s a chance that it never happens.

Time blocking is an effective solution to tackle any sales activity that you find your sales team is lagging behind in. It’s particularly valuable for cold outreach, which can often be a numbers game.
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Encourage sellers to set aside time to research potential clients and then dedicate the time they need to actually contact them. While you won’t get all your prospects into your pipeline, investing in cold calling could help you uncover that one deal that allows you to supersede your targets.

Cold calling also bolsters your organization’s network, opening up doors to other relationships that could drive pipeline growth down the road.

9. Prep for sales meetings

It might feel like common sense, but the truth is that the vast majority of meetings are unproductive and inefficient—at least according to 71% of managers surveyed by the Harvard Business Review. 
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Sales calls are one of the most effective tools sales reps have for maintaining pipeline progression. It’s an opportunity to build relationships, communicate value, and tackle any blockers. However, that requires sales professionals to show up strategically to keep the deal moving in the right direction. 

Host meetings that make an impact by:

• Preparing an agenda with discussion points.
• Sending agendas and materials to buyers ahead of time.
• Downloading and preparing any necessary sales materials and collateral.
• Aligning on and assigning action items during the meeting.
• Using meeting recording and other sales productivity tools so sellers can focus less on taking notes and more on the customer.

10. Track and analyze your sales data

Sellers can face a lot of subjective barriers and feedback, forcing them to make assumptions throughout the sales cycle. This can easily lead sellers down a rabbit hole of low-value sales activity or poor-quality deals. Data helps mitigate these risks when engaging in sales activities. 

Clean and enriched sales data can elevate the sales process by empowering sellers to make data-driven sales decisions that help close deals faster. While data can impact sales activity, tracking that same activity is also vital to creating a robust dataset that improves deal decision-making. 

On the other hand, we know that it’s easy for data creation to become a neglected task. 35% of sales managers say that their team members fail to use their CRM due to a lack the time to keep records and activity updated.* 

When data tracking and analysis is viewed as a valuable sales activity, reps are more likely to engage in tracking as a part of their sales strategy. Additionally, automated CRM sales activity tracking can reduce the burden of manual data entry. Affinity for Salesforce extensions help extend activity insights directly into sales reps’ inboxes and browsers so they can access and update activity data in seconds.

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Why sales activity tracking is essential to sales teams 

Adding yet another task to your sellers’ plates can feel counterintuitive. 

However, investing in sales activity tracking can quickly pay off. While there are many ways to bolster sales activity within your team, it’s impossible to understand the impact of those changes without actually tracking that activity.

Here are a few reasons why sales activity tracking may be one of the best ways to increase sales activity among salespeople.

Learn where sales reps are spending their time

It’s impossible to know where your sales activities are falling short without a clear understanding of where sellers spend their days. 

Is time being wasted on manual data management? Are sellers spending too much time chasing deals with a low likelihood of closing? Or is it simply a lack of sales activities altogether?

By tracking sales activity at the individual and team level, sales managers can better identify top performers, successful activities, and uncover areas of improvement.

Understand key metrics and the reliability of your sales forecasts

While B2B sales can be notoriously unpredictable, there are ways to better understand the value of your pipeline. 

By tracking your sales activity, you can easily tie every dollar in revenue to sales activities. It helps you understand which sales activities correlate with high-quality deals and the relationship between sales activities and revenue. This helps forecast the value of your existing pipeline. 

For example, let’s say that 2% of initial sales calls reach the finish line. And the average deal size is $50,000. The average time to close is six months. This means if your sales team conducts 100 sales calls this month, you can expect to close $100,000 in revenue in six months time. 

The same formula also applies backward. By understanding the sales activities that ladder up to your sales goals, sellers can set key sales activity metrics and KPIs to ensure that the number of deals in their pipeline is enough for them to successfully reach their sales quota.

Let’s look back at the previous example. 

If your team’s monthly sales revenue target is $200,00 in six months, your team should be looking at completing at least 200 initial sales calls to meet that target.

Increase your win rate

Maximizing sales means making the most of the right opportunities. Sales activity tracking provides sellers with insight into every interaction a customer has ever had with your organization. This allows them to confidently make informed deal decisions based on that information.

Without a centralized solution for tracking sales activity, sellers are left with static and fragmented data. This means they need to source that information themselves or make guesses about prospect potential—both of which run the risk of pursuing low-value deals or missing opportunities altogether.

Identify deals that may be at risk

Until everyone signs on the dotted line, deals have the potential to fall off the rails. Tracking your sales activity can help identify at-risk deals sooner, so you can put a strategy in place to counter these risks. 

If you have a history of sales activity, you know exactly when a contact was last engaged. With that information, you can set alerts and schedule follow-ups, so qualified deals never sit idle for too long.

Sales activity can also be used to generate a map of the strongest relationships within your organization. This ensures that you’re in contact with the right key stakeholders and decision-makers. If those key contacts fall off your sales activity radar, it could be a sign that something has gone awry and needs to be corrected.

Improve your sales activity tracking

Streamline sales activity, automate tracking, and close more quality deals with Affinity for Salesforce. 

Affinity helps teams ditch the manual data entry while enriching your CRM with valuable relationship intelligence insights. 

73% of B2B sales leaders believe that record creation and updates take too much of their team’s time, but with Affinity, sales activity tracking has never been easier.*

Teams that use Affinity:

• Automate sales activity capture: Save over 200 hours of manual data entry for every seller by automatically capturing sales activity data right from your team’s inboxes and calendars.
• Access data insights in just a few clicks: Connect your Salesforce CRM with your inbox and browser, to help sellers identify the highest-value sales activities and make deal decisions with confidence. Plus, Affinity’s browser extensions seamlessly add sales activity tracking to your team’s workflow. 
• Make the most of every relationship: Stay on top of every opportunity with a complete history of buyer engagement. Set optimal relationship strength and alerts so customer engagement never drops below the ideal threshold.
• Uncover warm introductions: Close deals up to 25% faster by surfacing warm introductions and inferred connections within your entire company’s network of relationships.

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Sales activity FAQs 

What are the most important sales activities?

The most important sales activities are the tasks that attract and drive deals forward. The highest-value sales activities can vary depending on your industry and sales pipeline. However, tasks that are known to boost sales performance include cold calls, sales meetings, CRM management, relationship management, and lead qualification.

What is sales activity tracking?

Sales activity tracking is the process of collecting and recording all your team’s sales activity in your CRM. This includes creating a record of all sales-driving tasks such as phone calls, emails, and client conversations. 

Tracking sales activity data can boost seller accountability, increase sales efficiency, and enhance the client experience throughout the sales process.

Can you automate sales activities and sales activity tracking?

Yes, you can automate sales activities and sales activity tracking with a CRM like Affinity or an integration like Affinity for Salesforce.

Affinity automatically creates records and enriches CRM data, saving each team member over 200 hours of manual data entry per year. Affinity generates deal insights from sellers’ inboxes and browsers, so it’s all accessible right within Salesforce. You can then use your CRM functionality to trigger content and communications based on a buyer’s unique stage in the sales funnel to increase sales activity while reducing repetitive tasks. 

* Data from Affinity’s 2024 survey of 250+ business leaders across investment banking, media and communications, real estate, professional services, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, and enterprise technology.

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